Introduction
Tired of struggling with duplication in your Salesforce data and on the hunt for the all-in-one deduplication tool? You are not alone. While many organizations start with native Salesforce deduplication tools, they quickly realize that they are limited. The good news is that there are some excellent Salesforce duplication management tools available to help fix and prevent duplicate entries.
Table of contents:
- Plauti vs DataGroomr Overview
- Installation and Onboarding
- User Interface
- Duplicate Identification
- Duplicate Prevention
- Merge Processing
- Plauti Pricing vs. DataGroomr Pricing
- Conclusion
Plauti vs DataGroomr Overview
In this blog, we compare two of the leading AppExchange deduplication applications – from Plauti and DataGroomr. Plauti was founded in 2011 and has evolved their offering into three distinct products: a Salesforce duplicate management app (Duplicate Check), a separate verification tool (Record Validation), and a data management solution (Data Action Platform). DataGroomr, started in 2018, developed and offers a modern platform solution.
While they solve similar challenges, there are key differences including:
| Plauti Duplicate Check | DataGroomr | |
|---|---|---|
| Installation | Must install managed package, set up and configure | No installation or configuration required |
| User interface | Salesforce | Modern intuitive UI |
| Duplicate identification | Classic matching rules | AI-based machine learning and classic matching rules |
| Duplicate prevention | Available | Salesforce duplicate rules |
| Merging | Salesforce | Salesforce API |
| Pricing | Multiple options | Transparent pricing and calculator on website |
Installation and Onboarding
Plauti’s tools are native Salesforce applications, installed via managed packages and available in both Salesforce Classic and Salesforce Lightning. Setup and configuration must be done by trained administrators. Once installed, options are available to expose the app and configure user access.
DataGroomr does not require installation. Users can instantly access the app by logging directly into DataGroomr with their Salesforce credentials or from the AppExchange, in which case the app is available as a tab in Salesforce.
User Interface
Plauti’s user interface is based on traditional Salesforce. While this UI is familiar to most Salesforce users working with data elements, it sometimes lacks intuitive user interaction and at times appears kludgy.
DataGroomr is not built on the Salesforce design system. Its user interface is more modern, intuitive and responsive. It includes rich advanced functionality such as drag-and-drop and instant notifications that speed up routine tasks.
For customers who wish to display potential duplicates to their Salesforce users, DataGroomr provides a Salesforce Lightning component that can be added to any standard or custom object page layout.
Duplicate Identification
This is where the two products diverge significantly. Plauti Duplicate Check uses traditional matching rules. Users need to configure rules by selecting fields, specifying matching methods (exact or fuzzy), and setting weights for each field. It is not uncommon to set multiple matching rules for each object, and all rules must be maintained to make sure duplicates are identified accurately.
DataGroomr takes a very different approach by understanding that there are strong patterns in how users identify duplicates in Salesforce. Using very large datasets, DataGroomr data scientists developed sophisticated machine learning models that identify duplicates with a high level of precision and recall. When a user logs into DataGroomr, these models automatically scan and identify duplicate records – without any need for manual configuration. In addition to the pre-trained models, DataGroomr allows power users who want more control to create their own machine learning models by simply specifying relevant fields and providing examples of duplicates to teach the artificial intelligence to detect data patterns and generate duplicate detection algorithms.
Duplicate Prevention
Plauti Duplicate Check provides a feature to prevent duplicates (during save or while typing). This feature is an enhancement of Salesforce’s Duplicate Rules feature and can be helpful in maintaining data hygiene.
In real life, duplicate prevention has to be balanced with the need to capture data. If new records are being blocked, the reason needs to be clear to the user entering the data. For example, a common duplicate prevention rule blocks a new record from being created when an existing record has the same email address. In my experience, Salesforce out-of-the-box matching and duplicate rules do a very adequate job of preventing duplicates.
Merge Processing
As we all know, duplicates will find their way into any environment and every Salesforce administrator, user and stakeholder wants to eliminate them. Both Plauti Duplicate Check and DataGroomr merge records and overcome the limitations that exist in native Salesforce duplicate management.
- Manual Merge
Users can review duplicate records side-by-side and initiate a merge in both products, and both provide an ability to control which values are kept. DataGroomr’s modern interface offers additional features including: select/override the surviving (master) record, hide/show fields, verify contact information (like emails, phones and addresses), and more.
- Mass Merge/Quick Merge
DataGroomr users can perform a bulk merge based on match confidence level. Plauti Duplicate Check users can run Quick Merges that automatically merge records based on a user-specified threshold.
- Merge Jobs
Both products offer automation to run merges based on a schedule and match confidence/threshold.
For even more control, create your own merging rules with DataGroomr’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
Salesforce performance impact
Although there are similarities in merging options, Plauti Duplicate Check and DataGroomr differ significantly in how merges are executed. Duplicate Check merges records within Salesforce cloud, whereas DataGroomr uses Salesforce APIs. When executing large merge jobs, Plauti customers could see a degradation in performance and responsiveness of their Salesforce org. DataGroomr uses Salesforce APIs that run merges in the background, which does not impact org performance.
Undo Merge
Another important differentiator is DataGroomr’s unique Undo feature. Users can restore merged records from both manual and mass merges. DataGroomr restores the records from the Salesforce recycle bin and automatically reconnects them to any related records, reversing the merge process. While this feature is currently limited to records available in the recycle bin, stay tuned for some exciting announcements from DataGroomr in the near future.
Plauti Pricing vs. DataGroomr Pricing
Plauti offers several products (Duplicate Check, Record Validation and Data Action Platform) that can be purchased separately or combined (Plauti Data Management). Some pricing information is posted on their website. For example, Duplicate Check offers three tiered subscriptions: Advanced, Premium and Enterprise. Pricing is based on the number of records, although records are limited by tier. Prospective customers with more than 200,000 records must contact a salesperson and purchase the Enterprise plan.
Plauti highlights that their app includes unlimited users, which would be advantageous if many users were performing merges. However, since the merging process removes records from Salesforce, it can result in accidental data loss if done incorrectly. For this reason, most organizations limit merging to a few designated experts. In addition, most Salesforce users don’t want to manage data hygiene; they expect their administrator to take on that responsibility. Duplicate Check users report that “the hardest part is keeping up with the search function and teaching users how and which records need to be merged. So, it’s easier for one team member to manage.”
DataGroomr offers three tiered subscription plans – Standard, Professional and Enterprise – with increasing levels of functionality. DataGroomr’s pricing methodology is fully transparent and designed to support organizations as they grow. A clear feature matrix and helpful pricing calculator are available on DataGroomr’s pricing page. There is no need to work with a salesperson to evaluate feature and cost options. Prospective customers can quickly and easily calculate their annual cost by selecting their preferred functional tier, the number of records that they wish to analyze, and the number of DataGroomr users. Each tier includes 100,000 records and one user, which can be expanded as needed.
Conclusion
DataGroomr recognized an unmet need and built a modern Salesforce duplication management solution because the existing options were difficult to implement, use and maintain. Customers of these legacy applications complain about the complexity and time required to properly install and configure them – all before seeing any tangible benefit.
DataGroomr designed its app to be easy and intuitive to use. It requires no installation and finds duplicates right away, without complex configuration; so you can see its impact right from the start.
Want to see how DataGroomr can solve your data quality woes? Give us a test drive or request a demo to see DataGroomr in action and understand even better how the most modern approach delivers the best results.
